UNREAL MONREAL !!!

21/08/2013

Living in Britain, Wimbledon is of course a bit of an annual ‘religious event’ for me. But successive summers have been spent puzzled, watching Roger Federer strut onto centre court in what I call ‘haute sportswear’ – hyper-tailored lines, luxurious fabrics, exquisite detailing – whilst his female counterparts have sported nothing genuinely worthy to challenge for the Style Grand-slam. Filter that down from superstardom to the drab reality of the high streets, and there is no hint of an elegant sport trend to be found on Oxford Street!

But dressing sporty, and dressing chic are no longer mutually exclusive; I realise now that you can dress for exercise *glamorously*, in the same way you might feel dressing for a night out. The revolution has started with tennis, which has been injected with a vital shot of sport-chic by Monreal London, a high-end apparel brand that you might remember I stumbled across at the Queens Club boutique during the Aegon Championships earlier this year (you can see that post here).

I did some further digging and checked out their collection. Above all else, Monreal seems to worship the beauty of the female form, with materials and shapes that flatter and gently exaggerate our ‘good curves’. And they don’t just fake a token gesture towards fashion – they’ve clearly dedicated every feature to the cause. Before realising they’re a relatively young brand (not a bad thing; read ‘nimble, adaptive, on-trend’), you presume luxury from the outset. The look and feel is expensive, tailored, feminine and conservative whilst still being a bit adventurous and expressive. As you can see from these pictures we shot around Monaco, tennis whites are the base, but I really love the sparing and geometric use of colours and textures to break up the monotone whites (more of Monreal’s dresses to follow in future posts…)

In a world where I want to be able to feel a bit elegant when my sweaty body doesn’t look it, I think Monreal sends the message that ‘it IS possible!’ And given that it’s so aspirational and glamorous, I think it might help motivate people to work that little bit harder, so they fit that little bit better into their stylish sportswear, rather than just lazily shopping the next size shorts from Asda for £5. It all helps to buy into the lifestyle choice that this blog is ALL about. Click More below to see all the pics from the shoot…